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VA reform plan inspires new hope

An aphorism that's a staple in management classes goes something like this: "If you are in business -- any business -- and your focus is on anything other than the customer, you are doing it wrong."

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs may have finally come to grips with that wisdom. At least we hope so.

While the VA technically is not a business, it does have customers -- millions of them -- and those customers have one thing in common: They have earned certain medical benefits through service to their country. But the VA has been inadequately providing those benefits to many of its customers for a very long time.

Finally, things may be changing. Amid much fanfare Wednesday, the VA unveiled a dramatically different management system to simplify the legendary bureaucracy that has been its hallmark for generations. The plan is designed to untangle the gnarl and confusion that exists in the VA's network of private doctors.

The VA calls this its New Veterans Choice Program, and it will combine seven -- yes, seven -- of its existing private health-care arrangements into a single system. The design is a tacit admission that the government alone cannot handle the surging demand from veterans for medical care.

Long-term foreign wars and the aging of Vietnam-era vets have stressed the system beyond capacity. The litany of failures, some of them fatal, have been well-chronicled in recent years in news media and in political forums.

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Summing things up in an interview with The Washington Post, VA Secretary Robert McDonald said, "All of these programs have been layered on top of each other without someone saying, 'How do we rationalize them?'"

"We want the very best providers connected with us. This is a big deal, and it will be a big improvement over what we have now." Exceeding what we have now is a low bar, but this plan offers a glimmer of hope that significant change can occur reasonably soon. At a minimum, it should move the VA beyond coverups to action. Of course, the devil is always in the details. To hear customers tell it, the devil has been particularly fond of the VA.

And speaking of the devil and details, the plan still needs congressional approval. But we hope, after years of political grandstanding on all sides about the needs of our veterans, members of the politically warring parties will find common cause in swiftly approving a strategy to get these men and women the timely care that they need, deserve and have earned.

McDonald and his staff have raised hopes, and they need to make it so. Congress should empower them.

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